


Non Sum Qualis Eram

by HewerOfCaves



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, POV First Person, Translation into English
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 04:36:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21293684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HewerOfCaves/pseuds/HewerOfCaves
Summary: When I enter the room, Morifinwë Carnistir is sitting on a bench opposite the door. He is all in black, from the black worn boots to the black collar of his shirt. He is plaiting a black ribbon into his black hair. So much black scares me, but the bright eyes on his dark face scare me even worse. Like ice floes in dark water. They widen when he sees me.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 46





	Non Sum Qualis Eram

**Author's Note:**

> This is a translation of [Iolf's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iolf/pseuds/Iolf) work. You can find the original in Russian [here.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20757605)
> 
> Even though I'm a translator by profession, neither English, nor Russian is my native language, or a language pair I usually work with, so I apologize for any mistake that is bound to be in the text. I just loved the story and wanted more people to read it, so I made an attempt to translate it. Enjoy!

I keep dreaming of ice water. It draws out all my warmth, all my life through my skin, and only then gushes inside me. It is so bitter! I am dying of bile, I am dying of cold, I am dying from the weight pulling my body under the ice.

These are the dreams of my mother. They are as heavy as the thoughts my father hides. As heavy as my father’s guilt, which he also hides. As heavy as Nolofinwë’s silence, which is his permission to Findekáno to watch over Maitimo.

Maitimo is Fëanáro’s son, but what he survived, coupled with his maiming, has partially absolved him of guilt. So they say. I am trying to understand it, but the understanding itself is as heavy as everything else.

Two more sons of Fëanáro are in our camp. No one is happy to see them, but they keep taking turns visiting their brother. We tolerate them.

Father often talks about revenge. That word, _revenge_, hovers over him no matter what he does. I breathe in his thirst for revenge when he embraces me. I feel his pain. At night, when darkness grips his heart, I come to hug him, but then he calls the nursemaid and sends me away. How terrifying not to know how to help him. 

It is cold in the guesthouse. The rooms weren’t decorated with flowers, the beds weren’t made, water wasn’t carried ahead of the arrival of Fëanáro’s sons. Maybe the rooms were only dusted out. The rest will be taken care of by them or their squires. They should be grateful for that, Father thinks, he would rather see them spend the night outside the gates.

When I enter the room, Morifinwë Carnistir is sitting on a bench opposite the door. He is all in black, from the black worn boots to the black collar of his shirt. He is plaiting a black ribbon into his black hair. So much black scares me, but the bright eyes on his dark face scare me even worse. Like ice floes in dark water. They widen when he sees me.

“What do you want, Itarillë?”

Brass trumpets ring in my father’s voice, rivers sing in Makalaurë’s voice, in Maitimo’s voice — I hide that I heard him — now screams all the pain of this land. Carnistir speaks without expression. It gives me courage.

“You are to blame for the death of my mother.”

_Am I_, says the look he casts over me. The ice floes come closer, but at the last moment, he softens. 

“Go to your toys, child.”

“I am not a child. I am a princess of the House of Finwë!”

My father always laughs when I shout out these words, Findekáno laughs too, and Irissë picks me up in her arms. We are two women from the House of Nolofinwë, and at these moments, we feel our unity. How few these moments have become after the death of the Trees.

Fëanáro’s son doesn’t care. His fingers are moving; he is plaiting his hair.

“What does the princess of the House of Finwë want?”

“Revenge!”

His fingers freeze. He looks at me again, but his face is drawn. He is sincerely astounded. I am astounded no less. The word that Father carries with him, which he breathes in, which he uses to shield from me, has meaning on his lips, but from mine, it is just a cluster of sounds. The son of Fëanáro understands that.

“And how do you imagine it?”

I don’t. I only thought about how I would come up to him and declare my revenge, and then I would tell my father that I avenged him, and his heart would find peace. In between is emptiness, a hollow echo, the Doom of the Noldor: everything that happens as it should. But revenge does not happen by itself, you have to make it happen. Someone has to do it with their own hands. I am terrified again, I cannot answer, and salty, bitter seawater, which dragged my mother away, gradually rises to my eyes and throat out of shame.

Fëanáro’s son shrugs and ties the ribbon. A great dog comes to his feet, and he starts picking off burrs from her grey fur. There is a smirk on his thin lips, although he isn’t happy. I am entirely unfamiliar with the feeling that he fills up the room with.

“So what do you want, princess?”

I want to leave, but the feeling that there is no way out of here keeps me in place.

“To help Father.”

In silence, he measures me with his strange gaze. The dog stands stock-still, and only the sound of Fëanáro’s son picking off burdocks from the tangled fur is heard. The saltwater burns my eyes the same way it burnt my skin, though now it is hot, while back then it was cold. I am trapped. No one is in any hurry to take me away, to take me to Irissë, to Findekáno, to my father. To my mother. 

Carnistir looks at me like a thundercloud and narrows his eyes.

“You should not be speaking of revenge, Itarillë, until you understand what it means.”

“What does it mean?” I raise my head. My tears aren’t flowing yet, but the sea stands in my throat and doesn’t let me breathe.

“It is too early for you to know it,” he says.

I hate him. I hate his condescending words. I hate the eldest line of the Noldor. And most of all I hate my fear before him, when this black cloud, smelling of dog and horse, fills the entire room, floats and lowers in front of me on one knee, so our faces are finally on the same level. I see his hands out of the corner of my eye. With one blow, he could push me under the ice again, where the invisible current will no longer release its prey. 

“You should not be here.”

I want to answer with pride and dignity. I would have done it if not for a drawn sob.

“Do you have a handkerchief?”

I don’t have a handkerchief. The son of Fëanáro doesn’t either. There are no black handkerchiefs to wipe your nose with.

“Where are your nursemaids?”

I will tell him nothing. Nothing. With a sigh, he reaches out a hand to me but hesitates to touch. 

“Stop it. Enough. I am sorry about your mother’s death. I apologize to you. Hey. I apologize!”

Wasn’t this what he was supposed to say? But it changes nothing because those are only words. I don’t hear in them the suffering he inflicted, and so my father’s brass voice cuts through me. He has cursed them so many times, silently and aloud, that I carry it inside, and it is stronger than tears, stronger than fear, stronger than anything that squeezes my throat.

“Liar! Murderer!”

Though I am screaming straight at his face, he doesn’t move. A dark flush spreads on his cheeks and even on the bridge of his nose. 

“Not a liar.”

My tears dry instantaneously. I know what to do with him. I grab his heavy black braid, lying on his shoulder.

“Cut your hair as a sign of mourning!”

The son of Fëanáro frowns, unclenches my fingers and rises. Standing over me, he sticks his fingers in his belt, looks at his braid and then at me. I don’t leave my place. I demand. Finally, he shrugs.

“Do it yourself.”

I have never seen any Elda with such rough hair. Now, when he has tied his braid with a ribbon below his nape, it is even harder to cut off, but I can. Fëanáro’s son sits on the floor, the head of the dog in his lap. I sit on the bench and two pillows behind him and wield the scissors. We are silent.

And suddenly I hear someone running. They burst in together – Father, Findekáno and Makalaurë – and stop together too. Father is deathly pale.

“Itarillë,” Findekáno blurts out, “Silimë heard you scream.” 

Carnistir turns to the open window and I cut off the braid with a snip. He feels his head and straightens up again. 

“Morifinwë, what is going on?” It is Makalaurë. Mountain brook thunders over rocks.

“Oh,” says Carinstir, “The princess of the House of Finwë has come to me for revenge.”

Their faces are drawn, and at that moment all three look united, though Father’s eyes hold horror and shame besides surprise. I see myself through his eyes and I am terrified and ashamed too, even if the reasons are buried too deep. I don’t understand them.

“Morifinwë,” Makalaurë is still thunderous, but the threshold is behind, “Were you being overdramatic just now or…”

“No.”

All gazes turn on me. Even the dog raises her head, her breath warm on my fingers.

“No,” I repeat, “It is true.”

My uncle Findekáno leans towards me slightly. He is always convinced in his rightness. Nolofinwë says he has been like that since childhood. I wish I could be like him, but only Irissë has this gift besides him.

“Were you screaming because you were being hurt?”

Carnistir’s shoulders move. Under the shorn hair, even his neck reddens, and silence turns threatening. I remember the moments of dead silence when the sky on the distant shore reddened just like that. 

“No!”

“To assume something like that,” Carnistir hisses, “Only incredibly…”

“Moryo.” Makalaurë’s heavy gaze is on Findekáno.

“…foolish…”

“Moryo.”

“He’s right.” Findekáno waves his hand, and the hissing stops. “It was insulting.”

“No, it wasn’t.” 

Father speaks quietly, but, as always, he is heard by all.

He is ready to grab me and carry me away any moment, but Carnistir and his dog are between us like venomous snakes you cannot bypass. Everyone skillfully fails to notice it. I feel so bad for him and I ask them with a look to leave. Findekáno answers with a look that we all will have to wait a little longer for it.

“What happened next?”

I have to answer but I don’t know what to call the son of Fëanaro when I talk about him. What if I have accepted the apology of the enemy? What if it hurts my father again?

“We talked,” belatedly starts Fëanaro’s son instead of me, “I asked Itarillë’s forgiveness for the death of her mother. Which I am _sorry_ about. I cut my hair as a sign of mourning.”

It doesn’t sound like the words he threw at me instead of a handkerchief. I look at my scissors and don’t dare to raise my head. Why did I come here? I keep making mistakes. If Father had pulled out my mother out of the water in my place, they could have had many children.

Findekáno is silent. So is Makalaurë.

“Do not dare to mock it.” Father’s voice rustles like drifting snow masking a deep crack, after which ice ridges crumble. “Both of you.”

He means Makalaurë, but I cower on the bench because I am complicit. To finish it quickly, I start cutting the hair again, and the scissor blades move and slide forward with a quiet rattle.

“If I hadn’t mocked, what should I have done?” Carnistir asks. I want to poke him with the scissors.

“Cut off your long tongue.”

Under Findekáno’s gaze, they speak quieter and quieter, and the son of Fëanaro can barely be heard when he answers. “I could gesture…”

“Moryo.”

Findekáno smirks. He is calm now, such exchanges don’t intimidate him, while only I have something sharp in my hands. I see out of the corner of an eye how he exchanges glances with the older of Fëanaro’s sons and both glare at the brother of the other one. 

“And whose fault is it that even now only mockery is expected from you?” intones my uncle expectantly.

“Yes, whose?” continues Makalaurë in the same tone.

“Should I answer?” Carnistir breaks their apparent harmony.

“Spare us.”

They all keep glancing at me except Morifinwë, who has no eyes on the back of his head. They all tower over me, but I look only at Father.

“Enough,” he says wearily, “I have no faith in your words. Itarillë, _drop it_ and let’s leave.”

The scissors cut the last strand and the braid slides down to the ground. Carnistir leans away to allow my father to come and pick me up. They exchange fierce looks. Father steps on the dog’s tail, but I see that he crushed just fur. I clutch at him, his heavy palm slowly rests on my head, strokes my nape and neck. His wedding ring feels cold. Now it is always cold as ice, no matter how much you warm it. But his fingers are warm.

“Princess of the House of Finwë,” he whispers, and at the very end, I hear a smile. That’s all I wanted.

He carries me to the door. Findekáno follows us, but he has to have the last word.

“Maitimo will like it.”

“Stop talking for Mai…”

“Shut your trap, Carnistir,” sing-songs Makalaurë in such a way that can’t even be considered rude.

The last thing I see over my father’s shoulder is Makalaurë sitting in my place with the scissors and kissing his brother on the back of his head.


End file.
